PEOPLE FOOTWEAR’S DE JONG ‘HAS CHANGED THE BUSINESS’
PEOPLE OF THE MAN: As in the floor-above saying, Damian Van Zyll De Jong’s other shoe has fallen. The first was in 2010 when he founded Native Shoes to design and make EVA (ethyl vinyl acetate) moulded footwear. After a corporate falling-out, he, Matt Penner and Esme Smith founded People Footwear. The Railtown-based, 10-person firm now reportedly produces 250,000 pairs yearly from plants in Shenzhen, China, where De Jong spends four months of the year. Regarding copy-cat makers, “Everywhere, we see things Damian has created that became popular,” Smith said. “He has changed the footwear business.” Latter-day changes include knitted uppers and what De Jong calls “light moccasin boots and running shoe-hikers.” Paradoxically, he plans to increase online sales to 50 per cent while opening People-owned retail stores in North America. “There are a lot more shoes in the world than there are feet,” he said, knowing that to keep looking up entails looking ever more creatively down.
TRANSFORMATIONS: When Haida lawyer Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson sang her self-composed Call To The Ancestors in 2002, author-artist Douglas Coupland said: “Get an agent … just do it.” Seems she did. Her new book, Out of Concealment: Female Supernatural Beings of Haida Gwaii (Heritage, $29.95) not only sets down oral accounts of literal and metaphysical female characters but contains numerous photos of a costumed Williams-Davidson portraying them in forested and oceanside locales. Few others who took cases to the Supreme Court of Canada have likely done that.
WALL’S WHEELS: Perhaps the recent Crescent Beach Concours d’Elegance and current Luxury + Supercar Weekend inspired developer Peter Wall to air his Morgan Plus 8. Substantially handmade by the same family firm since 1910, Morgans remain wholly British, unlike Wall’s Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce and two Bentleys. With his britches skimming the blacktop, Wall looked up, as do his economic prospects. He recently rejected $100 million for the four-city-block Shannon estate that cost $750,000 in 1976. His 61-hectare Milner farm “isn’t for sale either.” And the ripsnorting Morgan? “It’s more difficult than driving the (Roll-Royce convertible) Dawn. At some point, comfort means a lot.” Translation: Make an offer.
TUNED UP: It’ll be a step ahead for globally busy conductor Ken Hsieh and the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra when they and the Vancouver Bach Choir stage Beethoven’s Symphony
No. 9, “the Choral” at Chan Centre on Sunday. It’s possibly a watershed, too, for three-year VMO president and seven-year board member Kevin Chen. A civil engineer, development firm partner and former jazz-rock bassist, Chen, 40, foresees the VMO as “the New World Symphony of Canada.” He’s referring to the 30-year-old, Miami organization that owns its performance hall and related facilities. Taiwan-born UBC grad Chen’s seven-year VMO goals include a permanent office and recital hall, one or two full-time staff, a much expanded education program, and performances beyond Greater Vancouver. Before stepping down, “I want to be sure that the road is clear and the tasks are defined for our (13-member) board.” That doesn’t quite echo major philanthropist and cultural director Michael Audain’s assertion that “a board’s job is to give, get or get off.” But it does imply that not only musicians have a baton to watch.
TALES OF TREVOR: Sunday’s concert will be another milestone for Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra resident composer Trevor Hoffmann, whose recent opus, titled Hoffmann’s, will première there. His accomplishments include music-producing the My Little Pony TV series, co-writing the Disney animation series Dr. Dimensionpants, and producing numerous music videos, some with filmmaker-girlfriend Bobo Zhao. A previous composition, Winning Team, certainly suits his and conductor Hsieh’s joint efforts.
BRAMWELL STOKING: Vancouver Symphony Orchestra music director Bramwell Tovey is fuelling up for his 18th and final season launch, on Sept. 22. By now, he likely knows Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 forwards, backwards and inside-out. Ditto the concert-opening composition: his own fittingly named Time Tracks. Donor-dependent orchestra leaders must be socially adept. Tovey sure was during a first-season Shaughnessy garden party where he recalled attending a “rugby scrum”-like event at Buckingham Palace without actually meeting the Queen. “I don’t know if she was offended,” Tovey said suavely. “But I’ve never heard from her since.”
ALL TOGETHER NOW: Years of physiotherapy after being mangled by a Manhattan car kept drama-school grad Alexandra Staseson from her first two job options. “I couldn’t waitress, so I started writing,” she said. That included Big Love and 10 debut-album songs the TV-series and indie-movie performer is waxing in Nashville but sampled at the Whistler Film Festival’s recent fundraiser here.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Aware that some folk laugh at politicians, the Sensible Vancouver party has nominated a genuine comic for the city council byelection. Cannabis advocate Mary Jean Dunsdon, a.k.a. Watermelon, did standup shtick for always-soldout Pink Show cabarets here. She and fellow comic Christine Taylor then took the show to L.A., Toronto, London and Amsterdam. Next stop: Twelfth and Cambie?